CALVARY.

 EVENING DEVOTION WITH James Smith 1850

JANUARY 9

 

Luke 23:33

And when they were come to the place, which is called 

Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, 

one on the right hand, and the other on the left.

 
We visited Gethsemane this morning, let us visit Calvary to-night. There Jesus suffered immediately from the hand of a holy God, here he suffered by the hands of wicked men.
 
He is led as a lamb to the slaughter.
 
See him passing through the gates of Jerusalem, weary, weak and faint; his cross laid on his shoulders.
 
He ascends the eminence, the common place of execution
  —the cross is laid on the ground
   —he is stretched upon it
    —his arms and legs are strained
     —and the nails are driven through his hands and feet
      —it is raised up and thrust into it socket with a violent jerk
         —all his bones are out of joint
              —and he hangs a spectacle of misery and woe.
 
See his attenuated frame,
 his pale cheeks,
  his sunken eye,
   his thorn-crowned brow,
       his death stricken countenance,
and hear him cry, 

“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

 
He is accursed, he is made sin for us; he suffers, the innocent for the guilty—he dies, the just for the unjust.
 
It is the Shepherd, dying for his sheep; the Bridegroom redeeming his bride; and the Head ransoming his body. He died for us, in our stead, that we might never die.
 

When the dread scene of death, the last

Important hours draws nigh,

Then, with my dying eyes, I’ll cast

A look of Calvary.

 
James Smith